Thursday, October 03, 2013
Amazon Working on a TV Streaming Box, Smartphones: reports

Amazon.com may enter the set-top box and smartphone businesses soon, as it reportedly building a smartphone with 3D eye-tracking ability along with a device that will stream Internet content to televisions, reports surfaced on Thursday.

Starting with the highly rumored Amazon smartphone, TechCrunch today cited unnamed sources and wrote that Amazon will make two smartphones. A high-end model with 3D eye-tracking ability using four(!) cameras, as well as a second inexpensive smartphone that will launch later this year. That phones run on software akin to the Fire OS in the Kindle Fire HDX.

Amazon in September denied it was releasing a smartphone at all in 2013 and if it did so, it wouldn't be free.

Seperately, the Wall Street Journal reported today that
Amazon.com has approached media software developers as well as cable television providers hoping to secure content partners for a set-top box codenamed "Cinnamon"

Amazon already operates a video-streaming website as part of its "Prime" subscription service that competes with Netflix.

Apple and Roku also sell boxes that stream content provided by the likes of Netflix to living rooms. And of course, Smart TVs from LG and Samsung as well as game consoles also stream online content.